Miss You
by blinkblink
Summary: He knows nothing about buying coffins. A short idea. No pairings; deathfic.


Disclaimer: Don't own MGS.

With MGS4 almost upon us, the angst is welling up stronger than ever. A short idea.

MISS YOU

He knows nothing about coffins. He understands the principle, has seen them on TV, has driven past a couple of hearses. But the idea of ordering one, or just walking into a store and laying down a fake credit card is somehow abhorrent. He could build one, if he had time, if he had the lumber, and it would look like one of those ones in the old Westerns, rough and deep and completely practical. Just a box.

 He's never been to a funeral. It may odd, but he's never had time to attend events for relative strangers. He couldn't bring himself to attend the other. The one that wasn't a  stranger, the one whose death he was responsible for. _She_ wouldn't have said anything, but he sure as hell didn't want to see her. So he left, got the hell out of Dodge, and no one said anything. They never have.

It's raining now, but not the pleasant spring rain trees reach up to welcome and flowers blossom under. The skies have split open like an angry wound, and rivers of water are pouring down on him like blood. The sun set a long time ago, and in the yellow glow of light pollution the rain is a million golden arrows, driving hard and fast to the dark earth below. He wasn't expecting it, not here, not now. It's even more clichéd for that.

Behind him, something heavy rumbles and he freezes, turns slow as the tide. But the sound passes, and he relaxes, looks back again. There's not much left that he can see, and he knows it's not the poor light. There will be no body. Nothing to bury. There's no need to worry about a coffin, or a funeral. Just as well, because he could never do it anyway.

The damn parrot, of all things, has been screeching in his memory. He had never even seen the bird before, had certainly not imagined one. And it burns, that that's what he thinks of now, that that's what echoes in his mind. _Hal, I miss you. Hal, I miss you._ The thing's long dead, must have sunk with the Big Shell. He's glad; he would have ended up killing it otherwise, and that would have been another betrayal to weigh him down.

For someone with plenty to grieve for, he's never been much good at it. Which is probably all right, because he figures there's no way to be good at grieving; if you are, you're doing it wrong. Maybe he is. There's an emptiness in him that wasn't there before, stretching from his throat to his heart, like someone tore his windpipe clean out. It hurts. But there are no tears. He remembers, it seems like an eternity ago now, _I don't have any tears left_. He doesn't feel like that. More like they froze all at once, lining his skull with ice and spreading downwards. He coughs, a thick wet sound echoing in the empty space. What kind of eulogy is that?

He doesn't have a lot of time. He has a rendezvous to make and he knows he can't miss it, even though he'll find sympathy there, of a silent hardened type. He can't break routine, not even now.

_Hal, I miss you. Hal, I miss you._

Colder than ice, it burns in the hole in his throat, because he knows once he leaves there will be no one who knows, no one who remembers, no one who cares. Not like he does. With this loss, there's already no one who really knows him, no one who will remember, no one who will care. Maybe that's fair. Maybe that's all they deserve. No. It may be what he deserves, but not them. It never occurred to him before, that he might be worth something not for himself, but for someone else. It doesn't, however, surprise him to realise it when it's too late to do anything about it.

It also doesn't surprise him that he lost that someone else. That he's lost his one tie, his one connection. It isn't unexpected, or at least, now that it's happened he wonders he didn't see it before. But it hurts like a gut wound that won't heal, that will bleed into itself and poison itself until he dies of it, one way or another.

_Hal, I miss you. Hal, I miss you. Miss you._

"Me too," he says gruffly, voice catching in his throat, as he levers himself slowly to his feet on the uneven ground.

The soldier's only consolation is that he won't for much longer.


End file.
